Information for providers

The Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme is funded by the Department for Education. It provides free meals and activities during the school holidays for school aged children from reception to year 11 (inclusive) who are eligible for benefits-related free school meals.

Funding from the HAF programme is available to schools, childcare providers, voluntary and community groups. You can find out more about the programme on the GOV.UK website.

Becoming a HAF provider

Applications for grants for 2026-27 are now open.

For further details, please read the guidance, specification and supporting documents and apply via the appropriate application form.

Online briefings

We are running three online briefings for organisations interested in applying for a HAF Grant.

The briefings, on Microsoft Teams, will cover guidance, the specification, the application forms, the selection process and answer any questions you might have.  All the briefings will be identical in nature and you only need to attend one briefing if you choose to do so. 

No preferential treatment will be given to an application due to attendance or non-attendance at the briefings and the panel will not be advised on attendance. 

All questions raised and answered will be added to the Council HAF web page for all applicants to see.

The briefings will be held on:

• 19 November 10am
• 25 November 2pm
• 1 December 11am

If you would like to attend one of the briefing sessions, please book your place through Eventbrite.

To find out more about the national HAF programme please go to DfE HAF guidance.

Guidance and supporting documents

• Holiday activities and food programme guidance 2025 - gov.uk
• HAF Specification (PDF)
• Forecasted clubs plus forecasted spend for 2026 (Excel)
• List of wards within each parliamentary constituency
• Grant agreement above 25k (PDF)
• Grant agreement below 25k (PDF)

Application forms

• Small clubs application form (Word)
• Mid-size clubs application form (Word)
• District wide application form (Word)

HAF requirements

To be eligible for funding, your provision must meet the HAF Programme’s framework of standards. This includes:

• 1 hour of physical activity per day. This could be a sport, game, walk or free outdoor play
• enrichment activities
• food
• nutritional education
• support for children and their families

The provision must also be:

• inclusive for children with Special Educational Needs or Disabilities (SEND)
• provided in person, following COVID-19 guidance, not online

The provision must be available for children, young people and their families for 4 hours per day, 4 days per week for:

• 1 week of the Easter holidays
• 4 weeks of the summer holidays
• 1 week of the Christmas holidays

If your provision does not meet all of the required standards but you'd like to be part of the HAF programme, we may be able to support you. For example, if you're not able to provide food, we may be able to connect you with local providers.

Documents and policies

If your application is successful, we’ll need to see some documents before we can provide funding. This includes:

• a safeguarding policy
• insurance certificates
• a health and safety policy
• a fire safety and evacuation plan
• a GDPR policy
• a complaints and whistleblowing policy
• DBS checks
• training certificates
• You must make sure that these documents are up to date.

Contact

You can email [email protected] with any queries.